


Senescent

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: A little, M/M, cecil overworrying and wanting to keep carlos safe and healthy, for as long as he can, kind of sad, mentions of terminal diseases and degenerative disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time works differently for people born in Night Vale. Individuals can spontaneously develop from adolescence to adulthood in the span of a few hours, or take centuries to age a mere couple of months. However, Cecil finds out that this tendency doesn’t extend to outsiders, and struggles to understand the reality that Carlos is getting older far quicker than he himself is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Senescent

 

 

Cecil has long carried on a love-hate relationship with the wispy bits of gray that cling to the hair brushing Carlos' temples. 

On the one hand, they certainly do not detract from the sheer loveliness that is Carlos' divine locks. In fact, Cecil would argue that those silvery highlights only serve to _enhance_ the full picture of Carlos' face, giving him a mature, intelligent aura to match that assuredly mature, intelligent brain humming just under the skull. 

But something makes his heart burn a little once the patches of grey grow noticeably bigger, spreading like wrinkles across Carlos' flawlessly dark coif. Cecil asks once if Carlos has noticed. The scientist touches his temples, shrugs, and asks if Cecil wants him to dye it, but Cecil shakes his head slowly; whispers _no_ with his mouth parted. 

For the first time in his long life, Cecil is very, _vividly_ aware of the passage of time. 

Time, _time_ , which is so very different in Night Vale. Time which passes in such unpredictable fashion, like a damaged video whose playback spasms backwards and forwards; sometimes slow, sometimes stopping altogether. 

This tendency makes age a non-factor. Old Woman Josie had been "Old Woman" Josie for as long as Cecil himself had been alive, and in that time he'd noticed no discernible change to her appearance aside from a varying and colorful assortment of shawls and the latest in conventionally-unsightly-yet-practical footwear. More notable was legendary Night Vale sports hero Landon Alder who had, within the span of a single day, been born, grown up, joined the baseball team, hit the winning home run in the final inning, and then collapsed into a pile of bones and loose skin in the dugout. 

Time, while not irrelevant, is _irreverent._

So naturally, Cecil himself had never scrutinized the passage of time with dire attention.

He starts paying attention, however, once he begins to notice strands of grey pop up more in more in the curls of Carlos' hair that he wraps around his fingers, pretending that their inky black tendrils draw him in and down and sideways into a warm furnace of purple-hot fire. Once the pores in Carlos' stubble gather peppery snow at their tiny peaks. 

He starts paying attention to the moments where Carlos has to slow down, has to stop, has to struggle to remember things that came to him previously with the ease of a hot dagger sinking straight through buttery flesh.

He starts paying attention to those worrisome times when Carlos will stare at such things as can openers or soup labels or the single step between Cecil's kitchen and living room with such intensity and suspicion that Cecil would have to examine them or hoot loudly in their direction to see if they were secretly shifting, unknowable masses taking on the form of household furniture and appliances; but no, they were entirely innocuous. Cecil doesn't understand why Carlos regards these objects as particularly loathsome when they are hardly all that lethal. 

These moments inspire Cecil to work in increasingly clandestine ways in order to keep Carlos safe and secure. He burns incense in the four corners of the room and the secret fifth corner in the center, filling it full of the scent of peppermint and honeydew as he weaves tiny hangmen out of yucca fibers and grocery twist ties and places them under the pillows and the tongues of Carlos' shoes. He brews tea made from an infusion of ocotillo flowers and Canadian nickels and has Carlos drink it, just to be careful. He had merely dabbled in the protective arts before but Carlos's well being certainly warrants re-doubled research into runes and practice with poultices. Carlos ill not be in any pain that Cecil can prevent. That is certain. 

Nevertheless, when he takes Carlos's hand to help him into bed he supports him only subtly. 

\--------

Cecil observes Carlos when he's sleeping, making sure he's exhaling regulation-quality air instead of stunted locusts, or coal dust, or blood that isn't his own. He doesn't want the scientist to be overwhelmed or scared but at the same time Cecil needs to know that he's all right, that he'll survive another night. When he is sure that Carlos is sleeping soundly, Cecil checks every mole on his visible body for signs of fibrous growths or the beginnings of toothy legions, but nothing ever sprouts from his body in such a way. Cecil counts that as a blessing but does not cease his vigil until he cannot physically keep his eyes open. Watching keeps people safe and has kept people safe for centuries, so as long as he's watching Carlos nothing can possibly happen to him. 

When he's not busy making sure Carlos isn't exuding any noxious fumes or spontaneously displacing his bodily fluids, Cecil simply touches, running his fingers over Carlos' face and neck and chest and arms, everywhere not covered by clothing.  

His skin is as delicate as it ever was, but only now is Cecil afraid of breaking it.  

As hard as he tries to drive those thoughts from his mind, they always crawl back and he's left wondering about how long Carlos can live in Night Vale. The annual town census issued by the City Council fixed the median life expectancy of Night Vale residents at an average seventy for men and seventy-five for women; though that had to be taken with some skepticism, as its pool included several indeterminate beings whose calculable age had long ago passed the scope of any individual not driven to madness. One of them runs the local massage parlor. Cecil had been there once, and had woken up in a burned out lot in Old Town Night Vale, smelling faintly of pine seed oil and surrounded by clumps of dead honeybees whose carcasses had spelled out  "ENTROPY REIGNS." 

Realistically, Cecil knows that Carlos hasn't grown too much older in the time they've been together; nevertheless it's difficult for him, with his warped view of time to have a logical perspective. So one time when Carlos is resting he takes a quick glance at the textbooks on human development in the small bookcase Carlos uses both as reference for his scientific experiments and as light reading. Carlos just _barely_ fits into the lowest end of the "mature" adult description, and for a moment Cecil feels better until a "see page 456" notation leads him to graphs and pictures and a clinical canto of increasing risk factors and other such terrible, _terrible_ things. 

After going through pages and pages of degenerative conditions with ill curiosity he winds up so distressed that he creeps over to where Carlos is dozing on the couch and nudges him awake, burrowing into a confused chest as he whimpers. Carlos cards fingers through his hair before propping up Cecil's head and trying to figure out what's wrong. Cecil won't tell him, can't tell him, but he makes Carlos swear that he isn't predisposed to traumatic encephalopathy or any other conditions amongst the laundry list of such strange, _horrible_ things. After Carlos belabors the point that he feels fine and there's nothing wrong with him and that fatal Tay-Sachs occurs primarily in infants _okay Cecil please don't hold my collar so tight it hurts_ , the radio host feels slightly better, and forgets about his previous distress entirely when the conversation segues into Carlos relating stories to Cecil about his childhood and family history. 

Cecil worries that Carlos smells differently than he used to, more of old linens and smoke, but there still creeps hints of fresh lavender that brings him back to the fledgling days where there was no them; only a baffled scientist and a lonely radio host held together with a thin string that could have very well gotten worn and fallen away but didn't, but instead grew tougher and stronger and tighter. 

\--------

Carlos falls once; slipping as his knee suddenly bends and catching himself on the kitchen counter,  pulling himself up halfway before eventually sliding onto the floor. He'd told this to Cecil word for word once the man had come home to find him lying with his back propped up against the cabinet below the sink, unable to get up only because it hurt pretty bad. As if he'd felt the need to explain. 

Cecil wants to take a look at it, maybe rub the skin with a salve of white sage and jackalope blood but then Carlos waves him off, says it's fine. Says that if it still hurts in the morning they can do something about it then.

This time Carlos lets him help more than usual, leaning on Cecil solidly as he leads Carlos over to the couch and sits, easing the weak scientist into his lap and wrapping his arms around him. 

Carlos' head leans back against Cecil's shoulder, turning so that he is facing his neck. Cecil dips his chin down and presses a soft kiss to Carlos' forehead. He sighs, the breath whistling wet past his teeth. 

"Sorry."

Cecil tuts, quietly.

"Hush. You have nothing to be sorry for. You are perfect." 

 "You're never going to stop saying that, are you? Even when I--"

"Of course not. You'll always be perfect. You're still perfect."

"Cecil--"

"You _are_."

Carlos says nothing and closes his eyes, acquiescent and molding heavy against Cecil's body. He feels very small and very deflated, and Cecil holds him tighter lest he disintegrate into bone dust and get blown away by the simple sound of Cecil's own breath. 

"You are."


End file.
